I had to look up Uju Anya and I came across this article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11213985/Professor-Uju-Anya-Queen-excruciating-death-doubles-down.html
When I think of "teachable moments," I do not think of people like her, even though she styles herself as a "teacher." I think of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. They …
When I think of "teachable moments," I do not think of people like her, even though she styles herself as a "teacher." I think of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. They seem to better model a more productive transition from colonialist racism to some kind of post-colonial dialectic that actually produces something positive.
The truth is that some people just want attention. The Queen's death offered an opportunity to get loud and perform "outrage." It's so damn easy to do with social media. Most people who do it really have no skin in the game upon closer inspection. I'm still trying to understand what the Queen had to do with Prof. Anya's Nigerian father's philandering.
The United States did welcome her Trinidadian mother and Uju and her siblings as immigrants. She ended up going to Dartmouth. That's truly impressive, as is the story of Nigerian immigrants in the US generally.
So Uju could have told an inspiring story based on her own life, had she wished. But instead, we got hate.
"The Queen's death offered an opportunity to get loud and perform "outrage." It's so damn easy to do with social media."
This is the single greatest tragedy of the way we've decided to use social media. It's so easy to imagine a world where outrage wasn't the currency of social media. Where we rewarded compassion or sincerity or insight with our attention instead. Just imagine if Anya's tweet had just been quietly dismissed as the pointless vitriol it was.
I'd love to see some comprehensive research into why the internet seems to bring out our most negative qualities so much more than our positive ones.
It begins with The Joy To Annoy. Not limited to trolls. People tend to use lesser goads like "amusing" and "thanks for playing" that arouse anger.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone, though not the instigation so much as in being aroused to anger, something I work hard at suppressing now. Some things just annoy the hell out of me, like the entire "trans" fad, pomposity, neologisms, and certain patterns of debate.
About two years ago I started getting tired of being angry all the time. It's a hard habit to break.
I had to look up Uju Anya and I came across this article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11213985/Professor-Uju-Anya-Queen-excruciating-death-doubles-down.html
When I think of "teachable moments," I do not think of people like her, even though she styles herself as a "teacher." I think of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. They seem to better model a more productive transition from colonialist racism to some kind of post-colonial dialectic that actually produces something positive.
The truth is that some people just want attention. The Queen's death offered an opportunity to get loud and perform "outrage." It's so damn easy to do with social media. Most people who do it really have no skin in the game upon closer inspection. I'm still trying to understand what the Queen had to do with Prof. Anya's Nigerian father's philandering.
The United States did welcome her Trinidadian mother and Uju and her siblings as immigrants. She ended up going to Dartmouth. That's truly impressive, as is the story of Nigerian immigrants in the US generally.
So Uju could have told an inspiring story based on her own life, had she wished. But instead, we got hate.
Hate is so easy. Reconcilation is hard.
"The Queen's death offered an opportunity to get loud and perform "outrage." It's so damn easy to do with social media."
This is the single greatest tragedy of the way we've decided to use social media. It's so easy to imagine a world where outrage wasn't the currency of social media. Where we rewarded compassion or sincerity or insight with our attention instead. Just imagine if Anya's tweet had just been quietly dismissed as the pointless vitriol it was.
I'd love to see some comprehensive research into why the internet seems to bring out our most negative qualities so much more than our positive ones.
It begins with The Joy To Annoy. Not limited to trolls. People tend to use lesser goads like "amusing" and "thanks for playing" that arouse anger.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone, though not the instigation so much as in being aroused to anger, something I work hard at suppressing now. Some things just annoy the hell out of me, like the entire "trans" fad, pomposity, neologisms, and certain patterns of debate.
About two years ago I started getting tired of being angry all the time. It's a hard habit to break.